Disassembly

There are three screws on the back that need to be removed first, one each under the two case feet and a third under that warranty void sticker we see above. Once done, take a thin, flat object and slowly pry the two case panel pieces separate. They are held in place with plastic tabs, although these tabs are thicker and stronger and do not snap off easily. You will likely scratch the bottom panel piece here, so you had better have a good reason to do so. Once done, you can separate the PCB/plate from the top and bottom panel. The bottom panel has a micro USB receptable to internal USB connector cable as well that needs to be dislodged from the PCB, so be aware of that.


We see a steel plate to provide some structural integrity to the keyboard here, and all the switches are thus PCB mounted through the plate. The PCB is green, and the solder quality is messy if I say so myself. There are no solder peaks that can meet up and short the keyboard, but the solder cutoffs are leading in every possible direction. It is functional, but not precise - perhaps the result of the assembly factory having deadlines.


The primary components are on a daughter board on the other side of the keyboard, above the arrow key cluster. Powering the MasterKeys L PBT is a Holtek HT32F52352 32-bit ARM Cortex microcontroller operating at 48 MHz and with up to 128 KB onboard flash memory and up to 16 KB SRAM. There is some functionality in terms of key assignment as we will see later, and the MCU had no issues handling them. Both PCBs have multiple layers for those who care about this.

Before we take a look at the driver, be advised that disassembly will void the warranty and that TechPowerUp is not liable for any damages incurred if you decided to go ahead and do so anyway.